MUMBAI (Reuters) - Oil-to-telecoms conglomerate Reliance Industries Ltd
Reliance's gross refining margin, or profit earned on each barrel of crude processed - a key profitability gauge - was $11.5 per barrel for the December quarter, up from $7.3 a barrel a year earlier, it said on Tuesday.
Consolidated net profit rose to 72.90 billion rupees ($1.08 billion) for the three months to Dec. 31 from 52.56 billion rupees a year earlier, Reliance said.
Analysts on average had expected a profit of 70.33 billion rupees, according to Thomson Reuters data.
The company, controlled by the country's richest man Mukesh Ambani, said stronger refining margins in the December quarter were a result of robust demand growth and its ability to source crude oil more cheaply.
Crude oil refining accounts for more than 65 percent of the company's profit and 70 percent of revenue. The company runs the world's largest single location refinery at Jamnagar in western Gujarat state.
"The benefits of low crude oil and energy prices for our downstream businesses clearly outweigh the impact of these factors on our upstream segment, reflecting in the record earnings for the quarter," Ambani said in a statement.
Reliance has also been expanding into consumer businesses such as retail and telecoms to aid growth. It has spent more than $14 billion to date on telecoms alone, and is diversifying into fashion, grocery and online banking.
Reliance's telecoms business, Reliance Jio Infocomm Ltd, is building India's biggest high-speed fourth-generation (4G) broadband network. It had been due to launch the services around December last year, but analysts and industry executives now expect the launch to be delayed until at least April.
($1 = 67.6300 Indian rupees)
(Reporting by Promit Mukherjee and Devidutta Tripathy; Writing by Sumeet Chatterjee; Editing by Anand Basu and Adrian Croft)
